Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011 with Top Shot Elite

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List Price: $69.00
Sale Price: $29.17
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I've never played any of the Cabela games before this one, so I can't tell you if this is any better or worse than the previous games. But when I visited my dad this past weekend, my brother was playing this, and I decided to give it a shot after seeing him play a level where a bunch of baboons were hell bent on taking you out. 'somehow reminded me of a story someone told me a while ago from when a baboon took their Homer Simpson action figure while they were in a safari. Anyway, I did experience some problems setting the game up, like many others here have mentioned, and played this on a 55" plasma tv, but it didn't have some of the problems that seem to be frequent with others.

Gameplay is pretty simpleyou trek around various areas in the country, be it a forest, jungle, grassland, etc. and blast animals left and right. This is the kind of game that PETA members would have a fit over, especially given that I think some of these animals are protected or endangered. There's a standard Classic gameplay mode where you rack up points shooting deer or whatever the main animal of that area is, avoid being killed by the more dangerous ones, and try to not shoot the females. This is the more traditional game mode from what I hear, but the Survival mode is where I spent the most time. This mode is basically House of the Dead but with animals. Crazed rhinos, bears (that look like big hyenas), baboons and more try to kill you, and it's your job to take out as many as you can and stay alive...for as long as you can anyway. There's a little more to the game, but chances are that you won't be doing anything other than Survival or Classic. Trust meif you try the story mode, you'll either laugh at the first cutscene and then go back to Survival, or wonder if you're watching a made for tv hunting movie. Plus the controls for Story Mode are different from the others, which doesn't make sense, so unless you're that hungry for some ps3 trophies, avoid this at all costs.

Notice that I gave the game 4 stars for funit's not because the game itself is really that fun, since it's a House of the Dead clone with animals, but I had a blast watching how some of these animals died and reacted to being shot at. There were several times when I'd encounter a few deer eating grass peacefully. I'd shoot one of them, it'd keel over, and the one next to it would still be eating, only to stop and look around frantically 2 seconds later like it was going "oh wait, we're being shot at?!", THEN it'd take off. When you kill an animal, the death animation varies from realistic to hilariously goofy. For example, I shot a goat in the head, and it bounced up in the air, all 4 legs stiff as if it were still standing, then it'd tilt back and fall to the side. This happened with baboons too, and never stopped being funny. But aside from this error in physics programming, it -ispretty fun to compete with other people to get the top score, and having a 4 player mode on this makes for a good party game. It made me feel like I was in an arcade in the mid-90s again when the ones around here actually had shooting games for more than one person.

However, here's the big problem: this game will or won't work for you if you have a tv bigger than 50 inches. Problems range from the calibration being messed up, to the gun not being responsive, or not getting anything even when you're the right distance away from the sensor. For me, aiming was off here and there, but got better as I played the game. No, it wasn't me getting used to the problem. The aiming really did seem to fix itself after I played for about 40 minutes, and instead of shooting below where I'd aim, the gun would be right on target.

This might be one of those tittles where you're better off using the regular Move controller instead of going for the big [over-priced] bundle with the Top Shot Elite. Holding the big plastic gun controller didn't do much for me, and I could shoot just as accurately without it. In the end though, it's all about peeling caps like bananas, and wasting baboons as they infiltrate my camp. If you can get it to work, and realize that this is more of an arcade-style shooter than anything else, Cabela's Dangerous Hunts 2011 is a fun title worth giving a try. If all else fails, wait for a price drop.

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This game is pretty fun, especially the shooting galleries. There is a seemingly unlimited string of animal to shoot, and using the Top Shot Elite gun is much easier than the 2009 version gun. The pump action doesn't feel as sturdy or exciting as say, Big Buck Hunter, but it is more than adequate. The scope seems pretty useless, but I haven't played around with it much. If you're looking for a fun hunting game that offers good graphics, this is a great option.

Note that the gun and sensor bar require AA batteries, but they come with your first set.

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Product will not calibrate on a 55 inch TV.

Can't get far enough away at 10 feet with Top Shot Elite.

Wasted a ton of money. Can't return open software.

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We could not get the top shot elite gun to calibrate to the screen. The ridiculous calibration routine will not allow adjustment. The way the calibration works is it presents targets at the corners of the screen to aim the gun at and click to set it. However, if the scope reticle shown on screen drifts off screen before you line up on the target it will just give error messages that it "cannot detect the gun". It would seem simple enough to program into it an adjustment to correct for this mismatch... but no, you're stuck with a non-functioning gun. When you go to the Activision support web site it states that you should be 9.5 to 11 feet away from the screen! With larger TV's the distance is even greater. This should be stated clearly on the box for system requirements. On my 55" set we couldn't stand far enough away so that the actual gun sight and the on-screen target would line up. Not even close. I guess I should move my TV to the hallway? Furthermore, the sensor only has two options to select in the menu, "top" and "bottom". Both of these are a compromise. We actually got the calibration to be closest (but not good enough) by taping the sensor to the center of the TV screen! The Top Shot Elite gun is garbage. Fortunately we have the actual PS3 Move controllers with a gun attachment. Using this the game can be played adequately.

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I doubt many people would think of a Cabela's game as a party game, but for groups of ~25 year old guys, it's a lot of fun.

I only played the "campaign" mode for about 5 minutes and was quickly bored, but I bought it for playing with friends anyway, so I wasn't disappointed.

Definitely buy it with the Top Shot Elite. It's fun to put together and hand off as it's the next person's turn. Adds a cool dynamic to the game that a controller just doesn't. I found the scope difficult to use in quick, fast paced moments like the mini-game scenarios (the game mode name escapes me), but I know it works well in campaign.